CHAPTER TWELVE

1750 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar) / UNSC frigate Commonwealth en route to the UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet Chi Ceti 4

The view screen in the bunkroom of the UNSC frigate Commonwealth clicked on as the ship entered normal space. Ice particles showered the external camera and gave the distant yellow sun, Chi Ceti, a ghostly ring.

John watched and continued to ponder the word Mjolnir as they sped in-system. He had looked it up in the education database. Mjolnir was the hammer used by the Norse god of thunder. Project MJOLNIR

had to be some kind of weapon. At least he hoped it was; they needed something to fight the Covenant.

If it was a weapon, though, why was it here at the Damascus testing facility, on the very edge of UNSC-controlled space? He had only even heard of this system twenty-four hours ago.

He turned and surveyed the squad. Although this bunkroom had one hundred beds, the Spartans still clustered together, playing cards, polishing boots, reading, exercising. Sam sparred with Kelly—

although she had to slow herself down considerably to give him a chance.

John was reminded that he didn’t like being on starships. The lack of control was disturbing. If he wasn’t stuck in “the freezer”—the starship’s cramped, unpleasant cryo chamber—he was left waiting and wondering what their next mission would be.

During the last three weeks the Spartans had handled a variety of minor missions for Dr. Halsey. “Tying up loose ends,” she had called it. Putting down rebel factions on Jericho VII. Removing a black-market bazaar near the Roosevelt military base. Each mission had brought them closer to the Chi Ceti System.

John had made sure every member of his squad had participated in these missions. They had performed flawlessly. There had been no losses. Chief Mendez would have been proud of them.

“Spartan-117,” Dr. Halsey’s voice blared over the loudspeaker. “Report to the bridge immediately.”

John snapped to attention and keyed the intercom. “Yes, ma’am!” He turned to Sam. “Get everyone ready, in case we’re needed. On the double.”

“Affirmative,” Sam said. “You heard the Petty Officer. Dog those cards. Get into uniform, soldier!”

John double-timed it to the elevator and punched the code for the bridge. Gravity faded out and then back again as the elevator passed between rotating sections of the ship.

The doors parted and he stepped onto the bridge. Every wall had a screen. Some showed stars and the distant red smear of a nebula. Other screens displayed the fusion reactor status and spectrums of microwave broadcasts in the system.

A brass railing ringed the center of the bridge, and within sat four Junior Lieutenants at their stations: navigation, weapons, communications, and ship operations.

John halted and saluted Captain Wallace, then nodded to Dr. Halsey.

Captain Wallace stood with his right arm crooked behind his back. His left arm was missing from the elbow down.

John remained saluting until the Captain returned the gesture.

“Over here, please,” Dr. Halsey said. “I want you to see this.”

John walked across the rubberized deck and gave his full attention to the screen Dr. Halsey and Captain Wallace were scrutinizing. It displayed deconvoluted radar signals. It looked like tangled yarn to John.

“There—” Dr. Halsey pointed to a blip on the screen. “It’s there again.”

Captain Wallace stroked his dark beard, thinking, then said, “That puts our ghost at eighty million kilometers. Even if it were a ship, it would take a full hour to get within weapons range. And besides—”

He waved at the screen. “—it’s gone again.”

“May I suggest that we go to battle stations, Captain,” Dr. Halsey told him.

“I don’t see the point,” he said condescendingly; the Captain was clearly less than pleased about having a civilian on his bridge.

“We haven’t let this be widely known,” she said, “but when the aliens were first detected at Harvest, they appeared at extreme range . . . and then they were suddenly much closer.”

“An intrasystem jump?” John asked.

Dr. Halsey smiled at him. “Correctly surmised, Spartan.”

“That’s not possible,” Captain Wallace remarked. “Slipstream space can’t be navigated that accurately.”

“You mean we cannot navigate with that kind of accuracy,” she said.

The Captain clenched and unclenched his jaw. He clicked the intercom. “General quarters: all hands to battle stations. Seal bulkheads. I repeat: all hands, battle stations. This is not a drill. Reactors to ninety percent. Come about to course one two five.”

The bridge lights darkened to a red hue. The deck rumbled beneath John’s boots and the entire ship tilted as it changed heading. Pressure doors slammed shut and sealed John on the bridge.

The Commonwealth stabilized on her new heading, and Dr. Halsey crossed her arms. She leaned over and whispered to John, “We’ll be using the Commonwealth ’s dropship to go to the testing facility on Chi Ceti Four. We have to get to Project MJOLNIR.” She turned back and watched the radar screen.

“Before they do. So get the others ready.”

“Yes, ma’am.” John keyed the intercom. “Sam, muster the squad in Bay Alpha. I want that Pelican loaded and ready for drop in fifteen minutes.”

“We’ll have it done in ten,” Sam replied. “Faster if those Longsword interceptor pilots get out of our way.”

John would have given anything to be belowdecks with the others. He felt as if he were being left behind.

The radar screen flashed with blobs of eerie green light . . . almost as if the space around the Commonwealth were boiling.

The collision alarm sounded.

“Brace for impact!” Captain Wallace said. He laced his arm around the brass railing.

John grabbed an emergency handhold on the wall.

Something appeared three thousand kilometers off the Commonwealth ’s prow. It was a sleek oval with a single seam running along its lateral edge from stem to stern. Tiny lights winked on and off along its hull. A faint purple-tinged glow emitted from the tail. The ship was only a third the size of the Commonwealth .

“A Covenant ship,” Dr. Halsey said, and she involuntarily backed away from the view screens.

Captain Wallace scowled. “COM officer: send a signal to Chi Ceti—see if they can send us some reinforcements.”

“Aye, sir.”

Blue flashes flickered along the hull of the alien ship—so bright that even filtered through the external camera, they still made John’s eyes water.

The outer hull of the Commonwealth sizzled and popped. Three screens filled with static.

“Pulse lasers!” the lieutenant at the ops station screamed. “Communication dish destroyed. Armor in sections three and four at twenty-five percent. Hull breach in section three. Sealing now.” The Lieutenant swiveled in his seat, sweat beaded on his forehead. “Ship AI core memory overloaded,” he said.

With the AI offline, the ship could still fire weapons and navigate through Slipstream space, but John knew it would take more time to make jump calculations.

“Come to heading zero three zero, declination one eight zero,” Caption Wallace ordered. “Arm Archer missile pods A through F. And give me a firing solution.”

“Aye aye,” the navigation and weapons officers said. “A through F pods armed.” They furiously tapped away on their keypads. Seconds ticked by. “Firing solution ready, sir.”

“Fire.”

“Pods A through F firing!”

The Commonwealth had twenty-six pods, each loaded with thirty Archer high-explosive missiles. On screen, pods A through F opened, and launched—180 plumes of rocket exhaust that traced a path from the Commonwealth to the alien ship.

The enemy changed course, rotated so that the top of the ship faced the incoming missiles. It then moved straight up at an alarming speed.

The Archer missiles altered their trajectory to track the ship, but half their number streaked past the target, clean misses.

The others impacted. Fire covered the skin of the alien ship.

“Good work, Lieutenant,” Captain Wallace said, and he clapped the young officer on the shoulder.

Dr. Halsey frowned and stared at the screen. “No,” she whispered. “Wait.”

The fire flared, then dimmed. The skin of the alien ship rippled like heat wavering off a hot road in the summer. It fluttered with a metallic silver sheen, then brilliant white—and the fire faded, revealing the ship beneath.

It was completely undamaged.

“Energy shields,” Dr. Halsey muttered. She tapped her lower lip, thinking. “Even ships this small have energy shielding.”

“Lieutenant,” the Captain barked at the nav officer. “Cut main engines and fire maneuvering thrusters.

Rotate and track so that we’re pointing at that thing.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The distant rumbling of the Commonwealth ’s main engines dimmed and stopped and she turned about.

Her inertia kept the ship speeding toward the testing facility—now flying backward.

“What are you doing, Captain?” Dr. Halsey asked.

“Arm the MAC,” Captain Wallace told the weapons officer. “A heavy round.”

John understood: Turning your back to an enemy only gave them an advantage.

The MAC—Magnetic Accelerator Cannon—was the Commonwealth ’s main weapon. It fired a super-dense ferric tungsten shell. The tremendous mass and velocity of the projectile obliterated most ships on impact. Unlike the Archer missiles, a MAC round was an unguided projectile; the firing solution had to be perfect in order to hit the target—not an easy thing to do when both ships were moving rapidly.

“MAC capacitors charging,” the weapons officer announced.

The Covenant ship turned its side toward the Commonwealth .

“Yes,” the Captain murmured. “Give me a bigger target.”

Pinpoints of blue light glowed and then flared along the alien hull.

The tactical view screens on the nose of the Commonwealth went dead.

John heard sizzling overhead—then the muffled thumps of explosive decompressions.

“More pulse laser hits,” the ops officer reported. “Armor in section three through seven down to four centimeters. Navigation dish destroyed. Hull breaches on decks two, five, and nine. We have a leak in the port fuel tanks.” The Lieutenant’s hand shakily danced over the controls. “Pumping fuel to starboard reverse tanks. Sealing sections.”

John shifted on his feet. He had to move. Act. Standing here—unable to get to his squad, not doing anything—was counter to every fiber of his being.

“MAC at one hundred percent,” the weapons officer shouted. “Ready to fire!”

“Fire!” Captain Wallace ordered.

The lights on the bridge dimmed and the Commonwealth shuddered. The MAC bolt launched through space—a red-hot metal slug moving at thirty thousand meters per second.

The Covenant ship’s engines flared to life and the ship veered away—

—Too late. The heavy round closed and slammed into the target’s prow.

The Covenant ship reeled backward through space. Its energy shields shimmered and glowed lightning-bright . . . then flickered, dimmed, and went out.

The bridge crew let out a victory cheer.

Except Dr. Halsey. John watched the view screen as she adjusted the camera controls and zoomed in on the Covenant ship.

The vessel’s erratic spinning slowed and it came to a stop. The ship’s nose was crumpled and atmosphere vented into vacuum. Tiny fires flickered inside. The ship slowly came about and started back toward them—gaining speed.

“It should have been destroyed,” she whispered.

Tiny red blobs appeared on the hull of the Covenant ship. They glowed and intensified and drifted together, collecting along the lateral line of the craft.

Captain Wallace said, “Make ready another heavy round.”

“Aye aye,” the weapons officer said. “Charge at thirty percent. Firing solution online, sir.”

“No,” Dr. Halsey said. “Evasive maneuvers, Captain. Now!”

“I won’t have my command second-guessed, ma’am.” The Captain turned to face her. “And with respect, Doctor , second-guessed by someone with no combat experience.” He stiffened and placed his hand behind his back. “I cannot have you removed from the bridge because the bulkheads are sealed . . . but another outburst like that, Doctor, and I will have you gagged.”

John shot a quick glance to Dr. Halsey. Her face flushed—he couldn’t tell from shame or rage.

“MAC at fifty percent charge.”

The red light continued to collect along the lateral line of the Covenant ship until it was a solid band. It brightened.

“Eighty percent charge.”

“They’re turning, sir,” the nav officer announced. “She’s coming to starboard.”

“Ninety-five percent charge—one hundred,” the weapons officer announced.

“Send them to Hades, Lieutenant. Fire.”

The lights dimmed again. The Commonwealth shuddered and a bolt of thunder and fire tore through the blackness.

The Covenant ship stood its ground. The bloodred light that had pooled on its lateral line burst forth—

streaked toward the Commonwealth , passing the MAC round a mere kilometer away. The red light glowed and pulsed almost as if it were liquid; its edges roiled and fluttered. It elongated into a teardrop of ruby light five meters long.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Captain Wallace cried. “Emergency thrusters to port!”

The Commonwealth slowly moved out of the trajectory path of the Covenant’s energy weapon.

The MAC round struck the Covenant vessel amidships. Its shield shimmered and bubbled . . . then disappeared. The MAC round punched through the craft and sent it spinning out of control.

The inbound ball of light moved, too. It started tracking the Commonwealth.

“Engines—full power astern,” the Captain ordered. The Commonwealth rumbled and slowed.

The light should have sped past them; instead, it sharply arced and struck her port amidships.

The air filled with a popping and sizzling. The Commonwealth listed to starboard, then rolled completely over and continued to tumble.

“Stabilize,” the Captain cried. “Starboard thrusters.”

“Fire reported in sections one through twenty,” the ops officer said, panic creeping into his voice.

“Decks two through seven in section one . . . have melted, sir. They’re gone.”

It grew noticeably hotter on the bridge. Sweat beaded on John’s back and trickled down his spine. He had never felt so helpless. Were his teammates below decks alive or dead?

“All port armor destroyed. Decks two through five in sections three, four, and five, are now out of contact, sir. It’s burning through us!”

Captain Wallace stood without saying a word. He stared at their one remaining view screen.

Dr. Halsey stepped forward. “Respectfully, Captain, I suggest that you alert the crew to get on respirator packs. Give them thirty seconds then vent the atmosphere on all decks, except the bridge.”

The COM officer looked to the Captain.

“Do it,” the Captain said. “Sound the alert.”

“Deck thirteen destroyed,” the ops officer announced. “Fire is getting close the reactor. Hull structure starting to buckle.”

“Vent atmosphere now,” Captain Wallance ordered.

“Aye aye,” the ops officer replied.

There was the sound of thumping through the hull . . . then nothing.

“Fire is dying out,” the ops officer said. “Hull temperature cooling—stabilizing.”

“What the hell did they hit us with?” Captain Wallace demanded.

“Plasma,” Dr. Halsey replied. “But not any plasma we know . . . they can actually guide its trajectory through space, without any detectable mechanism. Amazing.”

“Captain,” the navigator said. “Alien ship is pursuing.”

The Covenant vessel—a red-rimmed hole punched through its center—turned and started toward the Commonwealth .

“How . . . ?” Captain Wallace said unbelievingly. He quickly regained his wits. “Ready another MAC

heavy round.”

The weapons officer slowly said, “MAC system destroyed, Captain.”

“We’re sitting ducks, then,” the Captain murmured.

Dr. Halsey leaned against the brass railing. “Not quite. The Commonwealth carries three nuclear missiles, correct, Captain?”

“A detonation this close would destroy us as well.”

She frowned and cupped her hand to her chin, thinking.

“Excuse me, sir,” John said. “The alien’s tactics thus far have been unnecessarily vicious—like those of an animal. They didn’t have to take that second MAC round while they fired at us. But they wanted to position themselves to fire. In my opinion sir, they would stop and engage anything that challenged them.”

The Captain looked to Dr. Halsey.

She shrugged and then nodded. “The Longsword interceptors?”

Captain Wallace turned his back to them and covered his face with his one hand. He sighed, nodded, and clicked on the intercom.

“Longsword Squadron Delta, this is the Captain. Get your ships into the black, boys, and engage the enemy ship. I need you to need to buy us some time.”

“Roger that, sir. We’re ready to launch. On our way.”

“Turn us around,” the Captain told the nav officer. “Give me best speed on a vector toward Chi Ceti Four orbit.”

“Coolant leaks in the reactor, sir,” the ops officer said. “We can push the engines to thirty percent. No more.”

“Give me fifty percent,” he said. He turned to the weapons officer. “Arm one of our Shiva warheads. Set proximity fuse to one hundred meters.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Commonwealth spun about. John felt the change in his stomach and he tightened his grip on the railing. The spinning slowed, stopped, then the ship accelerated.

“Reactor red-lining,” the ops officer reported. “Meltdown in twenty-five seconds.”

Over the speakers, there was a crackle, a hiss of static, then: “Longsword interceptors engaging the enemy, sir.”

On the remaining aft camera, there were flickers of light—the cold blue strobes of Covenant energy weapons, and the red-orange fireballs of the Longswords’ missiles.

“Launch the missile,” the Captain said.

“Meltdown in ten seconds.”

“Missile away.”

A plume of exhaust divided the darkness of space.

“Five seconds to meltdown,” the ops officer said. “Four, three, two—”

“Shunt drive plasma to space,” the Captain ordered. “Cut power to all systems.”

The Covenant ship was silhouetted for a split second by pure white—then the view screen snapped off.

The bridge lights went dead.

John could see everything, though. The bridge officers, Dr. Halsey as she clutched onto the railing, and Captain Wallace as he stood and saluted the pilots he had just sent to die.

The hull of the Commonwealth rumbled and pinged as the shock wave enveloped them. It grew louder, a subsonic roar that shook John to his bones.

The noise seemed to go on forever in the darkness. It faded . . . then it was completely silent.

“Power us back up,” the Captain said. “Slowly. Give me ten percent from the reactors if we can manage.”

The bridge lights came on, dimly, but they worked.

“Report,” the Captain ordered.

“All sensors offline,” the op officer said. “Resetting backup computer. Hang on. Scanning now. Lots of debris. It’s hot back there. All Longsword interceptors vaporized.” He looked up, the color drained from his face. “Covenant ship . . . intact, sir.”

“No,” the Captain said, and made a fist.

“It’s moving off, though,” the op officer said with a visible sigh of relief. “Very slowly.”

“What does it take to destroy one of those things?” the Captain whispered.

“We don’t know if our weapons can destroy them,” Dr. Halsey said. “But at least we know we can slow them down.”

The Captain stood straighter. “Best speed to the Damascus testing facility. We will execute a flyby orbit, and then proceed to a point twenty million kilometers distant to make repairs.”

“Captain?” Dr. Halsey said. “A flyby?”

“I have orders to get you to the facility and retrieve whatever Section Three has stowed there, ma’am.

As we fly by, a dropship will take you and your—” He glanced at John. “—crew planet side. If the Covenant ship returns, we will be the bait to lure them away.”

“I understand, Captain.”

“We’ll rendezvous in orbit no later than 1900 hours.”

Dr. Halsey turned to John. “We need to hurry. We don’t have much time—and there is a great deal I need to show the Spartans.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said. He took a long look at the bridge, and hoped he never had to return.